


Snapdragons and Plum

by Eristastic



Series: Under(fairy)tales [9]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fluff, Other, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6829903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a locket is lost, a particularly unpleasant flower offers a deal to get it back, and Chara decides they like him. </p><p>[The Frog Prince AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapdragons and Plum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valety](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/gifts).



> Birthday fic for Shay! I wanted to try emulating their way of writing, if not their style, but then everything got out of hand and it was suddenly more than 8K and I don't know what happened. But. It's light and fluffy, so there's that.
> 
> That said, please be warned that the relationship Chara has with their parents is not good, and there's talk of misgendering.

In the depths of the forest just beyond the palace gardens, Chara was having significant trouble controlling themself.

All they could feel was anger, and shame, and thick tears that they pushed back with a nailed-on smile. At least they were alone: they didn’t need the added hurt of people telling them to stop being alarming, to smile properly, to act like a normal person, because the very thought of that made them want to rip the throat out of something. They had to cling to the anger, because if they didn’t, they’d only turn it back in on themself, and they couldn’t afford to do that. There was a royal banquet that night and they were never going to hear the end of it if they weren’t presentable.

So they settled for punching a tree. They were going to have to wear gloves anyway.

“That sure doesn’t look comfortable!” A cheerful voice came from behind them and they whipped around, holding their smarting, grazed fist to their chest. There was no one there. It was just the same slightly misty forest as ever: sparse trees that twisted like broken bones, boulders of all sizes scattered over the ground to leave no evenness to the forest floor, and all of it covered liberally in deep green moss. There was definitely nobody there: Chara would have heard them coming.

Shaking it off as an anger-induced delusion, they went back to punching the tree, shaking leaves down onto the litter at their feet.

“Okay, first of all, it’s rude to ignore someone when they’re talking to you.”

That time, Chara knew they weren’t imagining it. Even the figments of their imagination didn’t usually sound that petty and childish. So, holding their now-bloody hand, they turned again.

There was, unsurprisingly somehow, still nobody there. Just gloomy mist and rocks and so much moss that the whole place became somewhat swamp-like after rain. Then bright colour caught their eye: there was a golden flower just in front of their boots.

It was pouting, which wasn’t something Chara thought flowers usually did, but they didn’t much care. They didn’t care, but they were faintly grateful to it: the shock had frozen the plunging dread in their stomach, and they felt they could breathe a little easier. Just enough to talk to this bizarre creature without ripping its head off (or their own head off, if it came to that).

“Oh, so _now_ you pay attention to me.” He – they supposed he was a he rather than an it – glared at them.

Chara wrinkled their nose. “You’ve got to admit you’re some way below my line of sight.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m short, you’re hilarious. Why are you punching a tree?”

“What does it matter to you?” It wasn’t that they weren’t interested by the concept of a talking flower, it was just that they had rather more to be concerned with at that particular moment in time. Namely the fact that they were still burning with rage and they weren’t sure they were going to be in any state to go back to the hellhole of a palace they called home before…the next week, maybe. Best to be generous with those kinds of estimates.

“Okay, idiot,” the flower’s pout stretched and widened a bit, turning up at the corners and revealing rather unnerving fangs. Chara thought he might be threatening them, so they crouched down – holding onto the unpleasantly moist moss of a nearby boulder to steady themself – and they flicked the flower in his stupid face.

“Ow!” He screwed up his eyes and whined before glaring at them with all the force he seemed to possess in his tiny, leafy body. “Don’t _do_ that! And, for your _information_ , I already know why you’re being a total idiot and attacking a tree anyway. You dropped your stupid locket down that hole, didn’t you?”

Chara flicked him again. While he was screeching infantile curses at them, they glanced over at the offending hole in question. Much as it irritated them to admit it, the flower was right. They were never usually clumsy, or at least not that clumsy, but they’d managed to lose their balance on the slippery moss and they’d dropped their locket down probably the only pit in the entire forest. It went down further than they could see: a dark abyss that smelled vaguely of mud and rainwater, just about the size of their waist. There was no way to get the locket back: they couldn’t even see it.

They were never going to be able to fix this. The locket was one of a pair crafted especially for them and their sibling at their births, three years apart. Frisk was the only good thing about their childhood, about the entire fucking castle and the birds of prey that roamed its halls and pecked the two royal heirs into shapes they couldn’t fit. Their lockets were precious, because they were _theirs_.

And Chara had lost theirs because they’d been stupid enough to take it off to look at it while walking.

They were never, ever going to forgive themself for this. A shudder of unspeakable rage at themself burned the tips of their fingers just remembering it.

“Hey, moron, are you _listening_?” The flower looked like he’d have his hands on his hips if he had hands or hips. “I’m saying, I’ll get it out for you.”

Chara looked up at that. “You will?”

“Sure!”

A lifetime’s worth of distrust flared up in their chest. “What do you want in return?”

The flower’s smile turned predatory: a jumble of sharpened teeth and mad eyes that didn’t suit him at all. “Let’s see…I want your weight in gold, a week’s stay in the best rooms the palace has to offer, and…I want you to kiss me.”

Everything seemed to grow still. “…I’m sorry, what?”

His grin split into something a little more childish, a little less threatening, though Chara didn’t think that was on purpose. “It disgusts you, right? I want you to get on your knees, bow to me and kiss me. I want you to be totally humiliated.”

Chara looked at him, unimpressed. “You realise that you’re insulting yourself by saying that?”

“ _No_ , I’m saying that _you_ probably think I’m disgusting and you’d be _wrong_ , but I’m going to take advantage of that! Ugh, use your head for once!” He looked flustered.

Chara considered the deal in front of them. Their legs were rapidly cramping up from crouching too long and the air was getting chilly, so they resolved to decide quickly. It wasn’t difficult. They weren’t sure if they’d be able to get their parents to pay up the first condition, but the second shouldn’t pose much of a problem, and as for the third…they could almost pity the unpleasant little thing smirking in front of them. Was a single kiss supposed to be humiliating? They suffered worse just getting dressed in the clothes that were put out for them in the morning.

But there was no point in letting him know that, so they adopted a conflicted expression.

“You’ll never get your dumb necklace back if you don’t,” he said smugly, puffing out his petals.

They screwed up their face harder, making a long _hmm_ sound and wondering if that was laying it on a bit thick. The flower seemed to keep perking up, though, so apparently not. With calculated timing, they let go of the tension in a quick sigh, turning distraught eyes on him.

“Fine,” they said through gritted teeth. “I’ll keep up my side if you keep up yours. Get me the locket.”

“Nuh-uh, not so fast! You’re going to swear it.”

That was surprising, but not too much of a bother. Impatient now, they said, “Okay, I swear.”

“No, you idiot. With blood.”

He seemed to be serious.

“And how are you going to reciprocate?”

The flower thought about this. Chara’s legs were beginning to scream at them, just as much as all of their instincts were. This was getting stupid. It all felt like a farce and they should have just got up and walked straight back to the palace so they could write Frisk an apology, but…

“Okay, not with blood,” the flower concluded after a while. “But hold your hand out.”

“Tell me what you’re going to do first.”

“It’s called a pinky swear, genius.”

“Not that you have pinkies.” They put their hand out anyway, and immediately a host of roots shot up from beneath the hard-packed ground to take hold of their pinky finger. Only through experience controlling themself did they not jump back in surprise. In fact, they didn’t move at all.

“Now repeat after me,” the flower sang in a sickly-sweet voice. “‘I solemnly swear to uphold my part of the bargain, and my life is forfeit if I don’t.’” Expectantly, he flashed a nasty grin at them.

Without missing a beat, they repeated his words and shook his roots off as if they were cobwebs. “Can you go get it now, please?”

He scowled, but spat a peevish, “Fine!” and sunk into the ground. Or perhaps ‘sunk’ wasn’t the right word: it was as if he’d been sucked into the leaf litter between two boulders.

For a few odd moments, Chara looked at the space where he’d been. There was nothing to suggest a flower had existed there at all, except for the disturbed earth from which his roots had burst out. With nothing much else to do, they stood up and stretched, frowning at the clicks and protests their joints made. After that, they waited just long enough to start wondering if he had run off for some incomprehensible reason (but he _might_ have: he might have left them to their mess and then what hope was left for them?), but finally there was a faint scraping sound that exploded into a flurry of bright yellow petals and their locket, all covered in earth and mud but still brilliant.

Chara grabbed the locket from his weak grip before he had the chance to say anything.

“Hey!” he shouted at them, but they didn’t care. They cared even less about the mud and grime that was getting all over the front of their dress: nothing mattered except the small, heart-shaped pendant in their hands. With its cold, firm shape in between their palms, even with mud squelching on their skin, they felt like they could relax. They had it back.

When they looked down at the flower, they saw he was pouting again. Not so much as if he was about to throw a tantrum, but rather like he was about to cry.

“You’re going to leave now, huh?” he smiled. It reached the sides of his face well enough. They’d give him a ten for effort. “I knew you were going to be a traitor.”

“I’m not breaking my promise.”

There was an embarrassing amount of hope in his face when he looked at them, his eyes widening into something almost pretty. For a second, they looked the colour of dark honey.

“Y-…you’re not?”

“No. I swore on my life, didn’t I?” Not that that meant much at all, but it seemed to cheer him up.

“Yeah! Yeah, you did!” He seemed to get some steam back; his petals looked less wilted. “So you’d better take me back to the palace right now!”

After getting their locket back, Chara was feeling uncharacteristically tolerant, so they allowed his otherwise intolerable bossiness. “Sure, whatever. I’ll need to know your name before that, though.”

“Oh, okay. Um. It’s…it’s Flowey,” he said, after a long period of thinking about it.

“Is it now.”

“Yeah! Flowey the flower!”

For a few moments, just to make sure he knew how much they doubted him, Chara stayed silent. Then, “Alright. Let’s go, petal-head.”

With Flowey complaining at their feet, they wrapped the chain of the locket round their wrist and walked towards the field of snapdragons that split the forest from the main palace gardens.

 

Talking to their parents was the worst part. Of course it wasn’t enough that they had to do it in front of both parents at once. No, they also had to speak in the main receiving room so there were hordes of servants and guards watching the oldest child explain their disgrace to their parents, holding a muddy locket and flanked by a perpetually scowling flower that trailed dirt over their shining marble floors.

It didn’t go over well.

After assuring their parents that there was no way they could break their promise to the flower (who wouldn’t stop hissing at anyone who came close to him), they were finally humoured. It was important to keep the royal blood free of dishonour, after all. The royal family couldn’t be seen to be taking advantage of those who helped them, even if said altruistic souls happened to be talking flowers.

Chara stood under the stone arches towering above their head, tapestries and stained glass windows reminding them at each glance of their family’s history, and they weathered their parents’ glares. They were a disappointment, and that was fine. They were disappointed in their parents too.

With their head held high over their filthy clothes, their messed-up hair, and the flower that was practically clinging to their skirts, they stalked out of the hall with a curt expression of gratitude. It didn’t matter. They’d done worse before: their parents would forget about it after Flowey had gone, especially seeing as how he was going to be kept in Chara’s tower. They weren’t exactly the best rooms, as originally stipulated, but Chara wasn’t going to bargain for that.

By the time they’d walked (and slid, in Flowey’s case) through countless halls and corridors kept wide and tastefully decorated, the sun was already sinking. Low light flushed through the wall-length windows they passed, opening out onto clouds glowing pink and silver, staining the wood panelling in bright contrasting shadows. Chara didn’t bother to make conversation, because Flowey was still acting like a feral animal. They didn’t know why he had to hiss at everyone who passed by them. It seemed totally unnecessary, but they had their locket back, so they supposed it didn’t matter in the long run. He could be eccentric if he felt like it.

The room was already filled with gold when they finally got there (Flowey had had trouble with stairs, and in the end he’d had to wrap his roots around Chara’s arm so they could carry him). It was a decent-sized room, well-aired out, and Chara noted with approval that the servants had left various vases of water around the surfaces. And, stacked in one corner, was a selection of gold plates, goblets, hair accessories, and just generally all the things that their parents probably hadn’t minded losing. The pile didn’t look like it would come close to a human child’s weight, let alone theirs, but they didn’t point that out.

Flowey’s eyes had fixed on the gold the second they walked in through the door. He looked surprised, actually. Maybe a little intimidated. Ignoring this, Chara started to wave their arm and peel his roots off their skin.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’m getting you off: I thought that much would be obvious.” They finally got one tendril loose, only for it to curl back around their arm, tighter. They stopped waving their arm in order to glower at him more effectively.

“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?!” he wailed. They fancied they could see down his throat when he opened his mouth that wide.

“Of course I am. Here is your room, here is your gold: you’ve got a week before you need to get out of here.”

“What about the kiss?”

“I have a week to give it, don’t I? Let’s put it off a bit longer.” They felt exhausted. There was a ball they had to be prepared for – an evening of smiling and polite greetings and enduring all the compliments on their hair and body and dresses and all the rest of it – and they knew their parents wouldn’t tolerate anything less than perfection, not after this.

But Flowey seemed set on being difficult. “No! It has to be now! You’re just going to go back on your word!”

They sighed. There were so many clocks ticking in this room – they couldn’t remember if it had always been like that or if it was just impatience eating at them. “Have I gone back on my word yet, even though I absolutely could have at any point? No, I haven’t. Nor will I, so you are going to let go right now or I’m going to cut your roots off.”

Reluctantly, Flowey slithered off their arm and onto the floor. They turned back towards the door, leaving him looking plaintive in the middle of a room far too big for him. They’d go and see him the next day, if they weren’t feeling too misanthropic. He’d be fine. He was too dislikeable to not be.

 

Chara didn’t begrudge Frisk the chance to go away for school. They’d supported them from the very beginning, when they’d first started to tentatively ask their parents if it would be okay. That had been a bleak time, for the most part: daily arguments kept tightly locked under smiles and pretty words and ‘I’m sure you’d prefer to stay’ or ‘You couldn’t possibly be comfortable in a totally new country, could you, my darling?’. It had been bleaker in the background. Daily reminders (through glares, through politely-worded notes and unsaid orders) that Chara had to make up for what Frisk couldn’t do. They had to smile wider, be more gracious, grow up better. _Be a better princess_. _Be a better daughter._

They weren’t (they’d never be that), but they could pretend, because it was for Frisk, and if they couldn’t both escape, then at least one of them should be able to.

So Chara didn’t resent Frisk at all. They were happy that their sibling was away, studying what they loved in an environment that was decidedly less toxic than the palace. They’d come back in a few years, and then their controlling parents would be content again, so everything would be fine. Chara was happy for them.

They were not happy.

The morning after the ball was hell. They’d drunk too much – a deluge of polite sips to avoid speaking – and they’d stayed up too late, so they were suffering, but their parents had seemed satisfied. That was probably worth it. Even if they loathed balls, dancing with unpleasant strangers, and the general horror of playing the princess for a night, relations had to be kept smooth. Their parents disliked them enough as it was. They were already discussing sending Chara to get engaged so they could produce some worthwhile heirs. They’d been discussing it at the ball.

It was mid-afternoon before Chara emerged from their room, and even then it was only to go straight to see Flowey.

For a moment, they thought they’d got the wrong room despite how patently impossible that would have been. The entire place – walls, windows, floor and all – was covered in green vines, rumbling softly with vibrations that would have disturbed the furniture if it wasn’t all tied up tightly. They were like snakes; some were thicker than Chara’s arm, some were as thin as a single hair, but they all moved. They gave Chara a headache just looking at them.

“What is this?” they asked, stepping inside and shutting the door firmly behind them. They had to step over the vines on the floor carefully to get to a chair, but then, after hesitating a moment to see if the vines wrapped around that would move, they just sat down. If Flowey didn’t want part of his body to be crushed, he could bloody well give them somewhere to sit in return.

“It’s cool, right?” Out of a bud that definitely hadn’t been there before, his head bloomed in front of their feet.

“Cool isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Then you’ve got awful taste, haven’t you?” He looked a cross between put out and faintly murderous.

They decided to take pity on him. “Gross, maybe. Definitely unnerving.”

He paused for a second. Then, “Haha, yeah! That’s right! You bet this is unnerving! Check this out.” All the vines began to convulse at once, moving like so many worms in a tangle. Rats’ tails also came to mind. Chara couldn’t help smiling.

“Horrifying. What are you going to do today?”

“Do?” The exaggerated glee of his face faded to confusion. He almost looked sweet.

“People tend to do things while they’re awake. Said things might include hobbies or jobs or duties, or any number of things one either feels like doing or feels one must do, or perhaps just things one is made to do. There are as many variables as there are-”

“Okay, yeah, I get it, no need to be condescending,” he grumbled.

“I was just explaining it to you.”

“I didn’t need you to!” He was fuming again, and they laughed. It caught them by surprise a little.

“So what are you going to do?” They rested their head on the back of their hand. “I’m assuming you asked for a room here because you wanted to explore the palace or something.”

“Well, you’re assuming wrongly.” He stuck a tongue out at them.

“Some nefarious dealings to be up to, then?”

“Don’t stereotype me!”

“Then why?”

Flowey pouted magnificently. “Maybe I just wanted to sit in the lap of luxury: is that really so bad?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well then.” He seemed smug with the win.

Chara looked at him without really seeing him. In all likelihood, their parents wouldn’t summon them for another few days. They had no duties except their own study, not for the time being. There was no harm in it, they thought.

So, “Do you want to come with me?”

“Huh?” He looked up at them and there it was again: hope, and wide, red-gold eyes.

“I’m just going to the library, but you can read, can’t you? Sounds better to me than lurking in this room and suffocating all the furniture.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it would,” he scoffed, as if that little remark actually meant anything. But his expression was still a reasonable size, not blown up into teeth like piano keys: that meant something. Sure enough, he rolled his eyes. “But if you need me with you _that_ badly, I’ll come.”

They ignored the bait, just held out their arm and he quickly detached himself from the vine he was on. Leaving the room a living nightmare for whichever poor servant might come in to try and clean it, they left.

 

It felt like the end of the week crept up on both of them. Between avoiding their parents with vigour, showing Flowey around, and putting up with his presence as their new, particularly nasty bracelet, the days flew by.

They took him to the library first. They made him swear not to get dirt on the books, and then they let him roam the labyrinthine passages between heavy wooden bookcases, the upper floors and its sets of tomes with bindings that fell apart in your hands, the glass-covered display books that only the chief librarian was allowed to touch. Chara studied, or read in the thick, plush armchairs by the window, and eventually they’d look up to see Flowey crawling down the curtains (several times Chara’s height) or along the varnished floor, pulling a book with him to read next to them. When they went to the library, he was always good. Reluctantly.

They took him along the ramparts, to the wine cellars and all the decent solars in the palace. He was raucous there, shouting at anyone who came close; sometimes he wouldn’t shut up until Chara flicked him in the face, at which point he’d start whining, but it was usually a quiet sort of whining. They could put up with that. And then they’d show him the views, or the rows and rows of gleaming bottles that stretched into murky cellars (chilled to the bone and far beyond, with how thick the stone walls were), and he’d grow silent. When he thought they were both taking it all in, his eyes would widen a little, and the caramel colour would bleed back in. They watched him for that.

At his insistence, they took him to all the rooms of their tower, showing him their private book collection, their music room with its delicate carvings and soft rugs to keep the sound gentle, and even the extensive wardrobe they wanted none of. But he liked it. They picked out a few of the prettier dresses and let him admire them (with insults or snoots), staring at the embroidery and lacing and layers and layers of skirts. Then he managed to get pollen on an entirely white dress and he wasn’t allowed near them anymore because, while Chara couldn’t really care and probably wouldn’t ever wear that particular one, the disapproval they’d get from the Laundry was more than they wanted to risk. They had special dresses for getting dirty and grass-stained: their grandmother’s engagement dress was not one of them.

The gardens and palace grounds were duly explored, too. As long as it was within the perimeter of guards, Chara was allowed to go where they liked, and it was even looked upon favourably by their parents. Some light, acceptable exercise for a growing child with little in the way of physical endurance. So they took Flowey to the stone gardens with their sculptures and fountains, and they spent a productive afternoon getting lost in the maze (Chara kept pointing out that Flowey could easily have climbed to the tops of the hedges if he took a second to stop griping, to which Flowey scoffed and replied that that wasn’t sporting). They went through the woods, climbing over moss-covered rocks that squelched with the lingering presence of rain that was still thick in the air, and they even took a turn on a particularly placid horse that didn’t seem to mind having Flowey climb all over it.

In short, the two of them ate together (watching Flowey eat was a repulsive experience Chara soon learnt to ignore), slept together after Flowey finally managed to wear them down, talked together constantly, and lived together inseparably. It was a short week.

 

“Are you ever actually going to do anything with that gold?” Chara asked, throwing a grape at Flowey for him to catch with his mouth. He managed it through the shameless cheating of making his mouth at least three times larger than normal.

Chewing messily, he looked over at the gold that still sat in the corner dustily. “What do you mean? I’ve got it, haven’t I? What else is gold for except having?”

“Spending, usually.” They settled back against the arm of the sofa, taking another grape from the bowl in their lap and rolling it around in their fingers. The windows were dark – they should draw the curtains, they thought, but that would mean extricating themself from the sofa so it didn’t seem all that worth it.

“What would I spend it on?” Flowey sneered. “It’s not like I need to eat or anything.”

“Yeah?” Chara pelted him with a few more grapes, only two of which he missed. “Then why would you ask for gold?”

He shrugged by sprouting two leaves to lift them aimlessly, then dropping them to the ground. “It seems like the kind of thing you usually ask for in those situations, right?”

“So you didn’t actually want anything specific? You just saw a favour you could do, and decided you’d ask for a reward?”

He grinned. “Yeah!”

“How sickeningly opportunistic of you.”

His petals puffed up like a lapwing’s crest. He was so transparent, so easy to please and upset, and Chara loved it. They popped another grape in their mouth, and tossed him one.

“Why a kiss, anyway?” they asked. “I thought the usual deal was my hand in marriage, or my first-born child or something.”

Flowey wrinkled his non-existent nose. “Why would I want your first-born child?”

“Why would you want a kiss?”

“Look, idiot, this is all on a _scale_ ,” he said, flustered. “I just got your dumb necklace back: how is that worth a marriage or a kid?”

“I wasn’t aware the aim of this whole thing was to be reasonable, though.”

“It wasn’t, it was to annoy you. Gosh, get with the program. And don’t look at me like that!” Thorns sprung from the vines closest to Chara’s feet, and they poked one with a toe, still grinning. He hissed at them before deflating. “I don’t _know_. I just had this feeling like I had to ask for a kiss. I don’t really get it either, you know.”

“Is this like how you don’t really remember your past?”

“Yeah…it was the same for asking for a week here. I don’t understand why, but I just felt like it had to be a week.” He looked miserable: a despondent tilt to his mouth, wide eyes all screwed up sorrowfully. He was even rubbing a tendril back and forth on the arm of the sofa as if to distract himself from his own tragedy. Chara was never going to get enough of how overly dramatic he was.

“Look, I don’t mind,” they said, trying a vague attempt at cheering him up. “I’m not going to go back on my promise.”

“You don’t have a whole lot of time to do it,” he pointed out. “It’s the last night.”

“And you’ve been showing an admirable amount of restraint in not reminding me earlier. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I’ve got to _leave_ tomorrow. You can just tell me if you don’t want to anymore.” His mouth was threatening a pout.

“I’m not breaking my word. And what does one more morning really matter? I mean honestly, you could stay another week if you wanted.” They wanted him to. They didn’t want him to leave.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” He scowled at the gold stitching he was perching on. “I just know it’s got to be a week.”

Chara scowled too, but he didn’t look up to see it. They put the mostly-empty bowl of grapes on the floor. “That sounds totally arbitrary.”

“Yeah, well. What am I supposed to do about it? All I know is that I can’t stay longer than a week, lay off!”

They did, unwillingly. If he was going to be childish, he could. It wasn’t their problem. But they still didn’t want him to leave. He was the best friend they’d ever had, apart from Frisk, and they didn’t want him to leave, because if he left then they were going to be left alone in the hollow halls of the palace all over again, fit only for being married off or praying for their parents to die so they could take over the throne by themself until Frisk was of age. As if that was something they wanted. They hated the idea of ruling, even temporarily, but they loathed the idea of being engaged against their will. When Flowey was with them, it felt like the fear was distant, irrelevant.

It had only been a week. Wasn’t that stupid? Weren’t they just being an idiot about this? There was no reason they couldn’t smile and let him go with a kiss, no logical reason at all except that they didn’t want to.

Again, unwanted thoughts came to them as they watched him pout at nothing. A softness in their chest, almost, because they wanted to make him smile. Or they wanted to make him upset, but because of them. Monopolisation of his every emotion, laid out like a tapestry for them and only them. But that was stupid too. If he wasn’t a flower, or if he wasn’t so immature…

If they weren’t an absolute idiot.

 

The last day, they took him to the flower gardens. It was one of their favourite places in the palace, so they’d left it until last. It seemed appropriate, anyway, him being what he was.

With Flowey wrapped tightly around their arm so his head was resting on their shoulder, they walked down through the stone gardens again, their boots crunching on gravel and discoloured sand. That was the only sound: Flowey was being unusually docile. Any gardener or servant who saw them immediately disappeared, presumably deciding that they had better things to do than to be shouted at by an oversized plant. The day was overcast, with barely any birdcalls.

But it was the last day, so Chara was damn well going to make the best of it.

Beyond the statues, there were two long rows of sculpted birch trees – kept painstakingly similar in shape and height – which led to an opening in the long hedge that bordered the flower gardens. Chara walked down between the trees, finally stepping out onto the stairs that led down into clusters of peonies and flowering brush. The gardens were geometrically designed: sets of tiny sections partitioned by more box hedges, each with supposedly different personalities. That was the idea, at least. Chara didn’t really understand it: presumably there were meant to be patterns, or something connecting the sets of flowers, but it never felt that way to them. It just felt like lots of tiny gardens, which just so happened to be perfect for privacy. So, walking slowly so Flowey could see his compatriots to his heart’s content, they went through them.

Broom mixed with hibiscus; heavy strings of wisteria hung over primroses and bright blue bellflowers, and still Flowey didn’t say anything. He seemed to be interested, but there were no cutting remarks (as if he could ever make his way from ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘cutting’), no sneers or scoffs. He didn’t say anything about the surprisingly slug-eaten nasturtiums (Chara would have to talk to someone about that, except they knew they’d never do it), nor the sweet-peas with their blushing pink petals wrapped in spider webs. There were spotted white and red fish in the decorative ponds they passed, swimming listlessly through pondweed and under heavy, mother-of-pearl-like lotuses, and still he said nothing. Chara could feel their blood rising at the thought of him being so reticent. If he was that miserable, he could at least make the effort to show it rather than falling into apathy. That wasn’t him at all, and they hated it.

So, when they climbed down some particularly mossy steps into the herb garden, Chara sat down firmly on the wooden bench there (dusting off woodlice) and pulled his stem round so they could look at him properly.

Asking him what was wrong might have been appropriate, but it didn’t come naturally to them, so instead they said, “If I kiss you, will you stop acting like a wet dishcloth that’s been forsaken by the world?”

“I was _not_ …” he grumbled, burnished-gold eyes looking away from them.

“You were.”

“I was not!” His petals stood on end like hackles. Chara tweaked one in their fingers, shaking his head back and forth lightly.

“Were you not, now?” They let him go, smiling carefully. “Do you still have to leave?”

“Yeah.” His despondence was back, pulling everything down like he was wilting. Somehow, he was still frowning. “It’s not like I _want_ to.”

They didn’t know why he had to keep saying it like that, as if he was justifying himself to them and it was their fault he had to. To make sure he had no room to say they were being unfair, they smiled wider.

“Do you want that kiss, then?”

The wind was picking up around them, making an already dreary day worse, but neither of them moved. There was just the shaking of the tree above them, the smell of mint and rosemary in the chilled air. Then, slowly, Flowey nodded.

“I guess…” he said in a totally unconvinced voice.

It was irritating. He could at least have the decency to get flustered, but it looked more like he was lining up for an execution. Hating how their heart had the audacity to flip, they moved closer to him. He screwed up his eyes, looking even more miserable, so instead of aiming for his mouth, they licked up the side of his face.

Shrieking in disgust, he reeled back as far as his stem would let him. “What was _that_?!”

“A worthy sacrifice,” they said, their voice muffled as they wiped pollen off their tongue with their sleeve, vaguely hoping that it wasn’t poisonous.

“You’re gross, that’s gross, that’s so gross!” This being said, he leaned back in and licked the side of their cheek before they could move to stop him.

“What the hell was that?!” they yelled, fighting the urge to put their hands to skin that now felt sticky with flower saliva (nectar? Water? What _was_ it?!)

“Pay-back!”

“You rotten, greenfly-infested _pansy_ ,” they growled, not really meaning it, because how were they supposed to be upset when Flowey was finally grinning normally again? “Fine, you want to see pay-back?”

It was a terrible idea, by all accounts: they should have taken more care about it, seeing as how they were locking lips with a flower that had teeth like a dragon in the picture books they’d long since stopped reading. But they didn’t take care. They grabbed him by the back of the head and shoved their mouth onto his, shutting their eyes as tightly as they could because, quite honestly, they didn’t want to know if his dark gold would burst into life. They didn’t want to know if his eyes would stay as dull as usual.

‘Unpleasant’ didn’t even begin to cover it. Whatever he’d licked on them before, it hadn’t been saliva because everything about him was dry and faintly reminiscent of leather, if leather moved weirdly and happened to be dusted in what was probably pollen. Then there were the teeth. Obligingly, despite squirming, he kept them well away from Chara’s lips (they appreciated the thoughtfulness), but it was still a little terrifying. They gave up on the idea of tongues about half a second in.

After less than thirty seconds (or less than twenty, or less than ten – they weren’t sure), they broke away with a touch more relief than was probably fair. But that was fine: it combatted the feeling in their chest that was a touch too disappointed to be reasonable.

As if they’d expected to fall in love with a single kiss. They had to be fucking delusional.

Before they had the time to think about it, or see Flowey’s reaction at all (they’d been hoping for more screeching), there was a flurry of wind and their vision was suddenly clouded by pink-white blossoms, so thick and so fast it was like they’d been drowned in the flowers falling from the plum tree’s overladen branches.

Eventually, the wind died down, and they could breathe without worrying they’d inhale petals. The comforting pressure on their left arm was gone; Flowey was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, staring at them like he’d been blind until the moment he saw them, there was a boy.

He had a strong resemblance to a goat, they thought, in the least insulting way that could be meant, since he did actually seem to be a goat monster rather than just a human with goat-like features, which wouldn’t typically be considered desirable. Not going by the traditional standards of beauty anyway, and wasn’t it funny how they still conformed to those? Terrifying. Anyway.

Beyond that, he was cute. His snout was all scrunched up with his mouth open just a crack, just enough to see his stubby incisors, and he was covered with fur that looked like it would be softer than dandelion tufts under their fingers. As if that wasn’t a weird thing to think. But most of all – more than his waistcoat that had just one button undone, more than the way his hands were shivering on the stone path – his eyes captured them. Like dark honey. Of course. As if they could forget.

“So it was a curse,” they heard themself say.

It seemed to break him out of whatever enchantment was over him and he grew flustered, his hands flapping at his sides. “Th-thank you! Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I thought I’d never get out of that…” He immediately began fidgeting, wrapping his stubby, fluffy fingers together and darting his eyes this way and that.

He was so easy to read.

“Flowey…?” Chara asked hesitantly, trying to find their bearings. It wasn’t easy, not with how they couldn’t stop looking at him.

“A-ah…no, not really…I mean, sort of? I’m Asriel, though.” He took a long, drooping ear in his hands and rubbed his fingers along it, looking away. “I…I don’t really know what he was…I mean, I don’t…I really don’t know,” he laughed nervously. “But I’ve got all his memories: I remember…everything…”

It dawned on Chara that he was avoiding their eyes. It dawned on them that they didn’t want him to, not if it would make him blush, or make him more flustered, or anything else that they could drink in as something they’d caused.

Total monopolisation.

“Is he gone, then?” they asked dully. Their nails dug into their palms.

“I don’t know.” He still wouldn’t look at them. “I think he was me, but without a heart. That’s…that’s what the sorcerer said when they cursed me. So it’s not quite ‘gone’, probably.”

“Oh.”

They really weren’t sure what to think. What was there to think? They’d considered that it might be a curse, what with how little Flowey remembered and all, but they hadn’t thought about that much beyond vague plans to find out how to break it. They hadn’t expected to stumble across the breaker so easily. They weren’t sure they’d been ready for that.

They wished he wouldn’t look so plaintive: it reminded them too much of Flowey. Was that the point? Had they lost a friend? Had they gained one? What was this?

Why was heat rising to his cheeks? Why was heat rising to _theirs_ just looking at him?

For something to do, they laughed a little hoarsely. “Well, I’ve got no idea how I’m going to explain this one to my parents.”

He sat up properly, his expression suddenly fierce. “You don’t have to! You never have to speak to them ever again!”

“That doesn’t sound practical.” It was like their mouth kept saying things without ever once consulting their brain. A good thing: their brain was still recovering and probably would have made some even more questionable decisions.

“It doesn’t need to be practical!” he insisted, his hands balling up into the fabric of his waistcoat. He was going to wrinkle it, they thought. “You never have to speak to them or look at them ever again. I’ll make sure you don’t have to!”

They blinked. “That’s. Um.”

Thankfully, he seemed to realise what a weird promise that had been to make, and his gaze dropped like a stone to his feet. He was still sitting down. It looked like it had to be uncomfortable, and then they saw a quiver to his mouth and they couldn’t think about anything else anymore.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to, uh….”

“Nah, it’s fine.” This was normal: this was him too emotional and them in control. They could handle that, they thought. “So, let’s get this straight. You say you’re Flowey, but with a heart?”

“Well, I mean, it’s more that he was me _without_ one,” he mumbled.

“Splitting hairs.”

“Not really.” Defiantly, he looked up at them only to freeze in shock at their smile (it was a pretty good one, they’d allow themself). A small _eep_ escaped his mouth.

“Either way, that being the case, what do we do now?”

“Do we…do we have to _do_ anything?”

“I suppose not.” It was getting too still, too hot, too off-kilter and they weren’t sure what to do. Very quickly, they stood up. “I’m going to find help.”

They weren’t: they were off to go hide in the library for an hour or two, but it didn’t really matter because his hand was on their wrist before they could even make it out of the opening in the hedge. They couldn’t quite make themself turn around.

“Wait, Chara!” He was still plaintive, still wreaking havoc on their heart without realising, probably. “I know this has got to be weird, and I know…I mean, you liked him, didn’t you?” There was a smile in his voice that didn’t sound like it belonged there. “Even though he was me too, I know this has to be difficult for you. For me to be here instead.”

That didn’t make much sense to them: surely he had to understand that they didn’t see it like that? That there was another reason they were having trouble, and it had everything to do with the fact that he was too _much_ like Flowey, with just enough changes to make the difference?

Well, no. Of course he couldn’t understand that: they hadn’t told him.

“But do you think we could try and be friends?” he asked in a small voice, and that was when it got altogether too much. They turned, taking his hands so his fingers fitted between theirs, and brought the knuckles of one hand to their lips.

He sucked in a gasp weakly, and they kissed the other hand too, just to be thorough. They met his eyes and were about to say something hideously embarrassing (probably along the lines of ‘Do you really want to be just friends?’) so it was a good thing that he kissed them instead.

It was better than kissing a flower, they’d give him that. It was awkward and weird and wet, but he squeezed their hands and leaned into them like all he needed was to be closer to them, and that made it alright, somehow. They were both breathless when they broke apart. Chara knew their face was flushed and they dared him to say anything about it.

He didn’t: he looked like he was having trouble forming words at all.

But someone had to say something, and they had to say something or succumb to embarrassment, so they did. “Want to stay for another week?”

Nodding furiously, he leaned in to kiss them again.

 

Unsurprisingly, nothing really changed after that. Chara’s tower remained theirs, with Asriel graciously allowed to stay there for another week which rolled into another month, and then another and another. What _was_ surprising was that Asriel had turned out to be a prince – an actual one, not just the ‘Prince of Darkness’ he’d called himself once as Flowey (which Chara would never ever let him forget about because what self-respecting person would let someone live that down?).

After a particularly trying afternoon with their parents, they came into their room and slammed the door, mostly for effect. The effect worked: Asriel looked up from where he was reclining on the sofa as if he owned the place, absent-mindedly sketching the vase of flowers on the coffee table.

“What’s wrong?” he asked soothingly. “Who do I need to kill?”

“My parents have informed me that they don’t approve of you and are still trying to get me engaged to some nice prince from a neighbouring country,” Chara sighed, sitting down heavily on the stiffly-ironed sheets of their bed, then falling back on them just as heavily.

“I see,” Asriel nodded sagely. “I will go and tear their eyes out while they sleep.”

Chara shot a look at him. “That’s more violent than usual, for you. Stick to stabbing.”

“You’re such a traditionalist,” he whined. “But fine, if that’ll make you happy.”

“And also, wait until Frisk is back,” they said as an after-thought. “I don’t want our parents dying and making me regent until Frisk comes of age.”

“That’s fair. You need to come back and rule with me, anyway.”

Chara made a face. “You’re not exactly selling yourself well, just so you know. That sounds awful.”

“Then I’ll do all the ruling and you can tell me how badly I’m doing it?”

“That’s more workable.”

“Good.” He flopped on the bed next to them, taking one of their hands and playing with the fingers, only bringing each finger-pad to his mouth to kiss after he’d fidgeted enough. “You really never take that thing off, do you?”

It took a moment to realise he was looking pointedly at their locket which was, as always, hanging brightly on their chest. “Of course I don’t.”

“Except when you’re dropping it down mysterious holes in the forest.”

“Except for then.”

“Mm.” He brushed a last few butterfly kisses against their palm. “Can I get you one? Something you’ll wear just as much?”

“Well, nobody’s _stopping_ you.” They liked the idea, actually, not that they’d give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “Two necklaces sounds too much, though.”

“A ring, then?”

They looked at him sharply. He was staring very fixedly at their hand, an expression of desperate concentration on his face as if he was committing all the lines of their skin to memory.

“Tell me you didn’t just say that.” Their voice was a little weak, even to them. They felt weaker than even that, though, so they counted it as a victory.

“You don’t have to accept! I just said it as a spur of the moment thing! It doesn’t mean anything!” He sounded unusually shrill.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” they repeated, rolling over so they could look at him better.

“Well. I mean. It means _something_. I guess. If you want it to mean something.”

They stared at him for a long time, long enough that the cuckoo clock chimed while they still lay unmoving. Long enough for them to get a little control back over their own voice.

So they said, “I think you should redo it. Ask me again, in a better place, with better words, and I expect at least three violinists.”

“Chara!” he cried, apparently scandalised, but he met their gaze, saw their smile, and burst out into nervous laughing. “Oh gosh, I thought you were serious!”

“I am serious. Totally serious, absolutely serious, so start drafting a proposal right now.” They tried not to wince at the word ‘proposal’.

“You’re being unfair,” he whined, bringing their hand to his mouth again.

“And you’re being a coward. You say enough embarrassing stuff every day as it is: it can’t be that difficult to concentrate it all onto paper, can it?”

“You just want an excuse to laugh at me,” he whined again, but softer, kissing the inside of their wrist.

“Oh, Asriel. Dear, sweet Asriel. I don’t need an _excuse_ for that.”

They looked at each other again and the mask of seriousness wore away: in smirks, then repressed giggles, and then they collapsed into laughter together. Chara thought that that – and the way Asriel squeezed their hand, beaming at them – was worth more than any ring he could get them.

**Author's Note:**

> Snapdragon – ‘Your wanton mischief will be avenged upon on you bitterly’, Plum blossoms – Keep your promises


End file.
